Objective: Anticytokine autoantibodies occur across a range of hematologic, pulmonary, and infectious diseases. However, systematic investigation of their presence and significance in autoimmune diseases is lacking. This study was undertaken to examine the distinct functions of anticytokine autoantibodies in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) compared to patients with other rheumatic diseases and healthy controls.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To estimate the prevalence and investigate the clinical features and the outcome of clinically significant renal involvement in a large cohort of patients with primary Sjögren's syndrome (SS).
Methods: Among 715 patients who met the American-European Consensus Group criteria for primary SS, those with clinically significant renal involvement were identified and their clinical and immunologic features were recorded. The prognosis in patients with primary SS with renal involvement was assessed by the clinical appearance of any of the following major outcomes: death, hemodialysis, chronic renal failure (CRF), and lymphoma.
Primary Sjögren's syndrome (pSS) is a systemic autoimmune disease mostly affecting the exocrine glands. A large number of autoantibodies have been detected in the serum of patients with pSS. Among them, anti-Ro/SSA and anti-La/SSB autoantibodies are the most common; they serve as disease markers and are involved in the pathogenesis of neonatal lupus syndrome (NLS).
View Article and Find Full Text PDF